A suspect, identified as Jason J Eaton, 48, has been arrested for the shooting, police in Vermont say, as the attack is investigated as a suspected hate-motivated crime.

Eaton allegedly shot three Palestinians college students on the street near the University of Vermont in Burlington on Saturday evening and then ran away, police said.

Two of the victims are US citizens and the third is a legal US resident, all 20 years old, police said. At the time of the attack, two of the men were wearing a keffiyeh, the traditional black-and-white checkered scarf worn by Arabs in the Middle East, they said.